Trust is fully strategic, requiring the truster to account for the trusted’s reciprocity

Evidence

A rational analysis of trust of another intentional being, as opposed to “trust” of a force of nature (our “trust” that it will not rain on a July day in Palo Alto), must take account of the rationality of both intentional parties. Indeed, in a trust relationship, I must think strategically, because my purposes are served by the interaction between what I do and what another does (or others do). My outcome is the joint outcome of both our actions. In this sense, mere expectation accounts are only half strategic, and they therefore fail to address the central nature of trust relationships. They have a liability not unlike that of the similarly half-strategic Cournot theory of market behavior. In the Cournot theory, actors assume regularity of behavior on the part of others in the market in order better to decide how to act themselves; but, although they are strategic in responding to others’ actions, they suppose that others are not strategic in responding to them. Hence they fail to take account of secondorder effects of others’ responses to their actions. Cournot actors are somewhat smart but they think others are dumb. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 77

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Strategic, joint-outcome reasoning is exactly the observational grasp the wife retains while others go blind — she alone can track second-order responses, which is why she can restore order.

Related

• Mere expectation-based trust theories are half-strategic and miss second-order effects. (similarity 0.90)
• Trust rests on the trusted party’s self-interest, not on their personal character (similarity 0.84)
• Rational trust requires both trusted’s incentives and truster’s knowledge (similarity 0.84)
• Trusting another requires guessing her motivations, not computing odds (similarity 0.84)
• Trustworthiness is grounded in the trusted’s interest in maintaining a relationship (similarity 0.84)
• Trust is rational expectation about the trusted party’s self-interest (similarity 0.84)
• Trust can be extended to create an obligation in the trusted (similarity 0.83)
• Trust is encapsulated interest achievable through many incentive mechanisms (similarity 0.83)
• Reciprocal trust multiplies each party’s incentive to be trustworthy (similarity 0.82)
• Trust requires knowing the other’s incentives to honor it (similarity 0.82)
• Trust relationships self-maintain once the parties recognize mutual benefit (similarity 0.81)
• Trustworthiness needs no moral groundings to sustain trust (similarity 0.81)
• Trust is a cognitive state of belief, not an action or purpose (similarity 0.81)
• Acting trustingly toward others can itself induce their trustworthiness (similarity 0.81)
• Trust rests on the trusted’s incentive to preserve the ongoing relationship. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Trust is encapsulated interest achievable through many incentive mechanisms #expands (0.85) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 151
• Rational trust requires both trusted’s incentives and truster’s knowledge #corroborates (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 110
• Trustworthiness is grounded in the trusted’s interest in maintaining a relationship #corroborates (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 111
• Trustworthiness requires both shared interest and the competence to serve it. #expands (0.75) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 188